Nanticoke River report shows mixed results on pollution

Delegate Eckhart and others participate in wade-in

Jul. 18, 2013

Shelly Baird, left center, executive director of the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, Maryland Delegate Addie Eckardt, center, and others wade in to the Nanticoke River at Cherry Beach in Sharptown on Thursday. / Staff photos by Todd Dudek

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SHARPTOWN — In defiance of a sign warning of high levels of bacteria, environmentalists and a group of summer campers Thursday splashed into the Nanticoke River to celebrate a milestone.

The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance marked five years of conducting regular water tests on the Chesapeake Bay tributary with a “wade-in” and the release of a new report.

In it, the advocacy group presented a mixed assessment of the river system’s health.

“Some indicators are very good. Some are poor, and there’s a lot that’s in the middle,” said Beth Wasden, the alliance’s volunteer and outreach coordinator.

The Nanticoke watershed encompasses 725,000 acres of Delmarva, winding from the corn fields of central Delaware to the marshes that separate the Mid- and Lower shores of Maryland. It is widely considered one of the bay’s healthiest watersheds, having only 4 percent of the area it drains under urban development.

Still, the report finds room for improvement, Wasden said. For example, water clarity has diminished since 2010 in the Upper Nanticoke, which flows between Seaford and Sharptown. The murkiness may be due to barge traffic or erosion caused by hurricanes during the past two years, Wasden speculated.

Some results highlighted the complexity of the river’s pollution problem. Phosphorus levels are bloated in the Fishing Bay headwaters, but that area was the only one out of seven that didn’t score poorly on nitrogen pollution.

Both nutrients are key indicators of the bay’s health. They help fuel algae blooms that rob waterways of oxygen as they die off.

The so-called “report card” gives each region an annual grade, based on water samples collected by volunteers at dozens of sites along the watershed. In 2012, the grades ranged from a “D” at Fishing Bay Headwaters to a trio of “Bs” for Delaware Headwaters, Broad Creek and Marshyhope Creek.

The alliance also tested the water for fecal enterocci bacteria, which is found in the guts of animals and humans. Six of the eight sites tested “very poor” for it last year; they included the Cherry Beach park site in Sharptown, which was the setting of Thursday’s wade-in.

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Wasden downplayed the significance of the bacteria findings, noting that such microorganisms are naturally occurring and the tests don’t indicate whether the source was animal or human.

“There’s no question the bay’s health is recovering,” he said. “When they monitor the water, they tell the story of the restoration.”

Alliance officials led a group of children from a Salvation Army summer camp to the shallows, where Delegate Addie Eckardt, R-37B-Dorchester, performed a “white shoe” test. She shuffled into the water until her sneakers could no longer be seen to demonstrate the importance of water clarity.

They disappeared at a depth of 17 inches.

After a few minutes of standing in thigh-deep, lukewarm water, the group headed back to shore.

“It was kind of cold and kind of warm,” Jmeir Taylor, 11, remarked afterward. “It looked like I didn’t want to swim in it, but it felt like I did.”